Trump Says He's Leaving Businesses to Avoid Conflicts of Interest

President-elect Donald Trump today teased a "major news conference" in mid-December, during which he said he will discuss how he plans to separate himself from his vast business empire and lead the country.

In multiple tweets, Trump said his children will appear with him at the news conference in New York City on Dec. 15.

He previously vowed to hand off his businesses to his three oldest children - Donald , Ivanka and Eric Trump - when he assumes office and has repeatedly asserted this constitutes an effective blind trust.

Trump, who announced D.C. lawyer Donald McGahn, an expert in campaign finance, as his White House counsel on Friday, said "legal documents are being crafted which take me out of business operations."

Multiple legal and ethics experts have criticized Trump's assertions that putting his children in charge of his businesses amounts to a blind trust, which is intended to remove any possibility of a conflict of interest by handing assets off to a completely independent stakeholder.

As president, Trump may be exempt from the main conflict-of-interest statute for federal officials, though continuing to mix his family's work with official and political business would bring an unprecedented potential for the appearance of impropriety and leave him open to the possibility of violating federal bribery law and an untested clause in the Constitution, according to constitutional law and ethics experts.